Open AccessPatrzenie jako źródło cierpień (z rzymskich dziejów pewnego motywu literackiego)
Author(s) -
Jakub Pigoń
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
symbolae philologorum posnaniensium graecae et latinae
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2720-2305
pISSN - 0302-7384
DOI - 10.14746/sppgl.2021.xxxi.1.15
Subject(s) - witness , cicero , emperor , character (mathematics) , gesture , psychology , expression (computer science) , literature , philosophy , aesthetics , psychoanalysis , art , history , linguistics , computer science , ancient history , geometry , mathematics , programming language
The paper examines a number of Roman literary texts (by Ennius, Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Seneca the Younger, Lucan, Tacitus, Jerome, etc.) in which viewing is connected with mental or emotional suffering. Usually, the emphasis is laid on a character’s viewing of some dramatic events – a close relative’s death, for example – and on his or her emotional response to what is being seen. In some works, especially in consolatory contexts, someone’s premature death is presented as advantageous because the dead person is now spared the necessity of viewing misfortunes which the living have to witness. Also, people may be compelled (e.g. by an emperor) to watch evil things; in such a situation they are usually viewers and objects of viewing at the same time, since their gestures and facial expression are carefully observed.